The division's fighting units, organised into three AA Brigades, consisted of Heavy (HAA) and Light (LAA) gun regiments and Searchlight (S/L) regiments of the
Royal Artillery. The HAA guns were concentrated in the Gun Defence Areas (GDAs) at
Birmingham and
Coventry, LAA units were distributed to defend Vulnerable Points (VPs) such as factories and airfields, while the S/L detachments were disposed in clusters of three, spaced apart.
Coventry Blitz At the time the 11th AA Division was created, the industrial towns of the UK were under regular attack by night, to which the limited AA defences replied as best they could. The West Midlands had already suffered badly, with Birmingham and Coventry receiving heavy raids in August and October. The new division was still being formed when the
Luftwaffe launched a series of devastating raids, beginning with the notorious
Coventry Blitz on 14/15 November. The Coventry raid was preceded by a dozen pathfinder aircraft of
Kampfgeschwader 100 riding an
X-Gerät beam to drop flares and incendiary bombs on the target. The huge fires that broke out in the congested city centre then attracted successive 40-strong waves of bombers flying at heights between 12,000 and 20,000 feet to saturate the defences. The AA Defence Commander (AADC) of
95th (Birmingham) HAA Rgt had prepared a series of concentrations to be fired using sound-locators and
GL Mk. I gun-laying radar, and 128 concentrations were fired before the bombing severed all lines of communication and the noise drowned out sound-location. Some gun positions were able to fire at S/L beam intersections, glimpsed through the smoke and guessing the range. Although the Coventry guns fired 10 rounds a minute for the whole 10-hour raid, only three aircraft were shot down over the UK that night, and the city centre was gutted. The change in enemy tactics led to HAA guns being moved from London to the West Midlands (for example, the
6th HAA Regt).
Birmingham Blitz area, after heavy bombing on 10 April 1941. The Coventry raid was followed by three consecutive nights (19–22 November) of attacks on Birmingham and other
Black Country industrial towns including
West Bromwich,
Dudley and
Tipton were all hit. Birmingham was bombed again during December (3, 4, 11) and on 11 March 1941, but the full
Birmingham Blitz came in April 1941, with heavy raids on the nights of 9/10 and 10/11 of the month, causing extensive damage and casualties. The Blitz is generally held to have ended on 16 May 1941 with another attack on Birmingham. By now the HAA sites had the advantage of
GL Mk I* radar with an elevation finding (E/F or 'Effie') attachment, and several attackers were turned away by accurate fire and their bombs scattered widely, some on nearby
Nuneaton. The city was attacked again in July, but the
Luftwaffe bombing offensive was effectively over. The West Midlands had been the hardest hit area of the UK after London and
Merseyside.
Order of Battle 1940–41 The division's composition during the Blitz was as follows: •
1st AA Brigade –
HQ Crewe: responsible for Staffordshire, airfields and VPs; left by May 1941 •
1st HAA Rgt •
106th HAA Rgt •
45th LAA Rgt •
63rd LAA Rgt –
new regiment raised in October 1940 •
61st (South Lancashire) S/L Rgt •
78th S/L Rgt •
83rd S/L Rgt –
new regiment raised in January 1941 at Crewe •
34th (South Midland) AA Brigade –
HQ Coventry: responsible for Birmingham and Coventry GDAs •
6 HAA Regt –
arrived from London 24 November 1940 •
60th (City of London) HAA Rgt •
95th (Birmingham) HAA Rgt •
110th HAA Rgt –
new regiment raised in October 1940 •
112th HAA Rgt –
new regiment raised in October 1940 •
22nd LAA Regt •
54th AA Brigade –
HQ Sutton Coldfield: responsible for S/L provision to West Midlands GDAs •
45th (Royal Warwickshire Regiment) S/L Rgt •
80th S/L Rgt –
new regiment raised in October 1940 •
10th AA 'Z' Rgt –
divisional Z Battery rocket unit formed January 1941 • 11th AA Divisional Signals,
Royal Corps of Signals (RCS) –
formed at Birmingham November–December 1940 as duplicate of 4 AA Divisional Signals • 11th AA Divisional
Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) • 254th and 912th Companies • 11th AA Divisional Company,
Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) • 11th AA Divisional Workshop Company,
Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) By March 1941, the 1st AA Brigade HQ together with the Regular 1st and 6th HAA Rgts had returned to the
War Office (WO) Reserve pending deployment overseas, but temporarily remained part of AA Command. By mid-May 1941, the 1st AA Brigade had handed over its units and responsibilities to a new
68th AA Brigade and left AA Command, while the
67th AA Brigade had also been created by splitting the 34th AA Brigade. ==Mid-War==